It is very
fine English, but it is the English of diplomacy somehow, and is never
downright this or that, but always has the honor to be so or so, with
sentiments of the highest consideration. Yet the praise of
_well-languaged_, since it implies that good writing then as now demanded
choice and forethought, is not without interest for those who would
classify the elements of a style that will wear and hold its colors well.
His diction, if wanting in the more hardy evidences of muscle, has a
suppleness and spring that give proof of training and endurance. His
"Defence of Rhyme," written in prose (a more difficult test than verse),
has a passionate eloquence that reminds one of Burke, and is more
light-armed and modern than the prose of Milton fifty years later. For us
Occidentals he has a kindly prophetic word:--
"And who in time knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue? to what strange shores
The gain of our best glory may be sent
To enrich unknowing nations with our stores?
What worlds in the yet unformed Occident
May come refined with accents that are ours?"
During the period when Spenser was getting his artistic training a great
change was going on in our mother-tongue, and the language of literature
was disengaging itself more and more from that of ordinary talk.
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